Even now I can’t export my Flash illustrations as. Meanwhile the world moves on, new file formats and codecs are developed, and whether my work is compatible with progress remains at the mercy of my software’s corporate overlords. It’s not the loss of my good money I can’t tolerate, it’s the loss of ALL MY WORK. At any time its “owners” can cripple it and otherwise screw over their customers, in pursuit of whatever misguided business model they fancy at the time.

I’d pay to switch to ToonBoom, for example, if I thought it would be reliable. It’s not the price of the software that puts me off. Whether it’s a massive Synfig UI overhaul, or something new built from scratch, I need a good, Free vector animation program to switch to. That said, I do trust that the problem is with the user interface, not the back end existing Synfig could conceivably serve as a starting point for making some really good software I could actually use. I devoted quite a bit of time and effort trying to switch, even getting a devoted Linux box for it it didn’t suck from lack of effort on my part. Synfig supposedly can do all sorts of wonderful things, but it’s simply not useable by anyone not actually developing the software. I’m frozen in time, and it’s starting to hurt.ĥ years have passed and there’s no viable Free vector animation software for me to switch to. Now it’s 2013 and I’m still using the same copy of Macromedia Flash 8 from 2005, on an old Mac that supports OS 10.5, because old Flash doesn’t work on newer computers or newer operating systems. I could have lived with the insult and expense of being forced to buy After Effects, but not of having my workload and production time increased just so Adobe could try to squeeze more money out of its customers.

Adobe removed high quality output options to force users to process. Old Macromedia Flash could export to any video codec Quicktime supported, including the luscious and useful “Animation” codec. Among their other unforgivable crimes was crippling Quicktime video output. Why? Because Adobe bought Flash and ruined it.

In 2008 I vowed that the only animation software I’d switch to, once I had to give up Macromedia Flash 8, would be Free software.

Swf inkscape alternative